A Verilog-A model for the design of devices for
fluorescence life-time measurement with CMOS
SPADs
A. Dieguez, o. Alonso, E. Vilella, A. Vila
Department of Electronics
University of Barcelona
Carrer Marti Franques, 1. 08028-Barcelona, Spain
adieguez@el.ub.edu
Abstract- Point of care devices for the early diagnosis of
current relavant diseases of our society require novel
miniature and very effective devices. This contribution
focuses on the description of behavioral models aimed to
develop custom readout Application-Specific Integrated
Circuits (ASICs) for the measurement of Fluorescence
and Fluorescence life-time of target substances. The well
suited for the ASIC development Verilog-A behavioral
description language is used to describe the sensor, an
ultra sensitive Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD)
fabricated in a conventional CMOS process, and the
fluorescence signal.
Index Terms-Verilog-A, behavioral, SPAD, Avalanche
photodiode, CMOS, fluorescence, molecular, diagnosis, life-time,
FLlM.
I. INTRODUCTION
Single-photon Avalanche Diodes (SPADs) are optical sensors
that can detect single photons. Due to the weakness of the
signal in biological experiments, SPADs offer great potential
as highly sensitive biosensors. Moreover, SPAD devices can
be fabricated in conventional CMOS processes, thus
exploiting the advantages of microelectronic technologies,
i.e., low cost, low power and high density of integration.
Currently, CMOS SPADs are gaining interest in many single­
photon detection applications.
In this paper, we focus on the application of SPADs to the
measurement of the Fluorescence life-time of excited
molecules. Fluorescence methods applied to medical sciences
exploit the phenomenon of fluorescence to analyze
biomolecular details of living tissue. In recent years, they
have become the key tool of many optical bioassays for the
instantaneous diagnosis and monitoring of a large number of
diseases, including cancer, cardiorespiratory,
neurodegenerative and immunological diseases. In particular,
the measurement of the life-time has the advantage of being
insensitive to the fluorophore concentration and other factors
978-1-4673-9184-9/15/$31.00 ©lOIS IEEE
that affect fluorescence intensity.
Nowadays, fluorescence measurements are still performed
by fluorescence microscopes, which are bulky and expensive.
Future personalized medicine needs small and effective
diagnosis tools, including diagnosis by fluorescence. Quite
recently, the use of on-chip fluorescence and life-time
detection with CMOS SPADs has been addressed by several
research groups. In order to provide low cost, fully integrated
solutions, fulfilling the necessary constraints in terms of
important parameters like power, significant progress is still
needed. Having useful models for the SPAD sensor and the
fluorescence signal is of relevance for the development of the
new instrumentation and is also the aim of this contribution.
Behavioral models allow the optimization of the design
choice at the simulation level, thus saving costs and time.
Moreover, they allow to explore different architectures during
the development phase, which is of paramount importance to
succeed in integration.
This contribution describes the key simulation models used,
which are based on the high level mixed-signal modeling
language Verilog-A. Verilog-A allows the description of the
electrical and non-electrical parts of the system, allowing a
whole integration in a standard simulation environment
commonly used to develop integrated circuits. The description
of the electronics can be done at the maximum level (post­
layout) and the sensor and the incoming signal in Verilog-A.
The sensor model can emulate the static and dynamic
behaviors, and the main statistical effects of an SPAD. The
incoming signal is described as a set of photons reaching the
sensor randomly in time, following an exponential decay. The
simulations reveal the characteristics required to track the
fluorescence decay of different substances.
Section II overviews a general set-up for fluorescence
measurements and the SPAD detector. The Verilog-A models
for the SPAD and the fluorescence signal are presented in
Section III. In Section IV we describe an example of
integration. Finally, the conclusions are given.
 II. FLUORESCENCE MEASUREMENTS WITH SPADs
The principle of operation of SPADs is based on the
avalanche multiplication phenomenon. Although the first
studies on this phenomenon in p-n junctions started in the
1960s at the Shockley laboratory [I, 2], it was not until the
1990s that solid-state avalanche detectors became available in
a CMOS compatible process [3]. However, only the
monolithical integration of an SPAD sensor and the front-end
electronics on a single CMOS die in 2003 [4] opened the way
to commercial applications. Currently, one of the applications
with the highest potential is Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging
Microscopy (FUM) measurements [5-7].
A typical fluorescence decay measurement setup consists of
a pulsed light source, a sensitive detector (the SPAD) and an
optical system. For time-resolved fluorescence analysis, a sub­
nanosecond pulsed light source and usually Time Correlated
Single Photon Counting (TCSPC) are used. In TCSPC, the
time of arrival of the photons after an excitation pulse is
measured and classified to reconstruct the exponential decay
of the fluorescence. Figure I illustrates the TCSPC process.
� Time /
time 0
time 1 1\
1\
1\
1\
time n
1\
reconstructed histogram
-
-
�-
-
�
-
Figure I: TCSPC process. Photons are detected at different excitation
times. The time of arrival is used to reconstruct the decay of the fluorescence.
As commented, an SPAD detector can be fabricated in a
conventional CMOS process. A typical pixel being part of an
array is as presented in figure 2 [8]. The SPAD device is
constructed in such a way that the electric field at the edges of
the p-n junction is lower to avoid premature edge breakdown.
The sensitive part is at the bottom of the structure (figure 3).
v••
VB. + Vov
K
"
'"
-
" -
.!l-"
A " "
0 E
$! 0
"
Vs
Figure 2: Typical SPAD pixel. The diode is biased VOY (overvoltage)
above the breakdown voltage. Vbias controls the SPAD recharge process after
the avalanche. The sensor is read by a CMOS inverter formed by MNJ and
MP4- The signals RS T and INH are used to control the time that the sensor is
active (gating of the sensor). The pixel is reset by RST and disabled with INH.
It is only active after the RST iflNH is high.
Figure 3. Cross section of one SPAD fabricated with the standard HV-AMS
0.35 J.lm CMOS technology. The deep p-tub in the edge of the p+/deep ntub
junction avoid premature breakdown.
III. BEHAVIORAL DESCRIPTIONS
The behavior of an SPAD sensor is not described by
technology models. It is a p-n junction biased some Vav
above the breakdown voltage, thus working in the Geiger­
mode. Several works have presented electrical models of
SPADs, including behavioral descriptions [9] representing
even the statistics of noise in these devices. For the purpose of
simulating the fluorescence detection a simple development is
necessary. The model used for the SPAD is presented in
figure 4, after [ 10], for a SPAD fabricated in a 180 nm
process. It is a piecewise linear model describing the static
behavior of the SPAD, that avoids convergence problems by
using the defined functions f 1- f4.
The signal, as illustrated in figure 1 for a TCSPC
measurement, is generated with the code shown, in portions,
in figure 5. The model considers a fixed number of events
which correspond to the arrival of photons to the sensor. This
reduces substantially the calculations in a simulation. The time
for each event is calculated in basis of an exponential or
 module APD_model_p_plus_in_nwell(cathode,anode,photon); module rand_event_stream (reset, vout);

inout cathode,anode,photon; output vout;

electrical cathode,anode,photon; input reset;
electrical vout, reset;
II Parameter definition
II Parameter definition
parameter real Vbd = 22.3; II depends on process and structure
parameter real R_d = 100.0; II SPAD internal R II main code
parameter real R_turnoff = 250.0; II Turn-off resistance
parameter real Uatchup = 20.0E-6; II Latchup current analog begin
parameter real Cs = 1O.0E-12; II Reverse saturation current @ (initial_step) begin
parameter real n = IE-5; II Scale factor to avoid overflow Illnitial definitions
parameter real C_d = 134.73e-15; II SPAD capacitance
II calculate exponential decay: event time is exponentially
real V_d,Yov; decreasing, P= exp(-i*ln/tdecay)
real C_p_d;
real Q_d; for ( i=l; i <= density; i=i+l ) begin
real avalanche; probability = 1.0*i/density;
real f1,f2,f3,f4,INL; timeofevent[i-I] = (-1.0) * tdecay * In (probability);
end
analog begin end

V_d = V(cathode) - V(anode); II

Vov = V_d - Vbd;
II After a reset signal the event is get from the table
@(initial_step)
begin @ (cross(V(reset)-(vlogic_high-vlogic_low)*0.5, I)) begin
avalanche = 0.0; II Initital conditions (quiescence)
end II select the index for the time in the list
eventselect = $dist_uniform(seed, 0, queuesize-l);
if (V(photon) > 0.99) event = $abstime + timeofevent[eventselect] ;
begin bit = 0;
avalanche = 1.0; II To mimic avalanche triggering vout_val = vlogic_low;
end

fl = 1_s; II the event is eliminated from the list

f2=(VovlR_turnofl)-((R_d - R_turnofl)*Uatchup)lR_turnoff;
f3 = abs(Vov/R_d) + U;
f4 = n*ln(exp(fl/n) + exp(J2/n)); II the signal to the event is generated and feed to the environment
INL=avalanche*(-n*In(exp(-f3/n)+exp(-f4/n)))+! (avalanche)*Cs;
@ ( timer( event )) bit = I;
if (INL < Uatchup) @ ( timer( event + tperiod)) bit = 0;
begin vout_val = (vlogic_high - vlogic_low) * bit + vlogic_low;
avalanche = 0.0; V(vout) <+ transition(vout_val,tdel,trise,tfall);
end
end
Q_d = C_d*(V(cathode,anode));
endmodule
1(cathode,anode) <+ ddt(Q_d);
I(cathode,anode) <+ INL;

end
endmodule

Figure 4: Verilog-A code of an avalanche photodiode, considering a 180 Figure 5: Verilog-A code for the photon generation in a FUM TCSPC
nm process. experiment.

multi-exponential probability, depending on the target
substance to simulate. A table stores the time of arrival of the
different events (photons) after firing a start signal (pulse of
light). A section of the code randomly takes one of the
generated events and reduces the table size, eliminating such
event from the table. After the complete simulation the
histogram must be reconstructed.
Figure 6 shows the result of the application of these models
to the circuit presented in figure 2. An event is generated some
time after the reset signal, as expected. The anode of the
SPAD goes from VSS after the reset, to the overvoltage at the
event time. The readout, consisting basically in a CMOS
inverter, is going from VSS to VDD ( 1.8 V).

--------'-
Figure 6. Simulation in the Virtuoso Cadence design environment of the event
generation and the SPAD output, as inputs to the readout presented in Figure
2. The 'event' signal induces an SPAD firing (see the anode going to
Overvoltage after the initial RST). The PIX signal is the output of the readout.
IV. CONCLUSION
The behavioral models of SPAD detectors and the signal in a
fluorescence-decay measurement have been presented. These
are used in the ASIC development environment. The
application of these models in the Cadence environment has
been shown. This is a step towards the development of new
diagnosis tools in the field of personalized medicine.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work has been partially supported by ACC 16 in
Catalonia through the Project 'Portable device for molecular
diagnosis' coded VALTEC13- 1-0020-00, and by the Spanish
Program for Particle Physics through the project 'Development
of new detectors and physics studies for future linear colliders' ,
coded FPA20 13-48387.4.
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